I wait for October like a mammal preparing for hibernation. I like to sleep, but I love to be couped up in my cozy sea-facing studio apartment in the towering landmark building called The Arcade. Even though it burns half my salary each month, it’s worth every dinar.

In the morning, I see runners chase the sunrise. In the evening, I people-watch with a cup of frothy hot Pumpkin Spice Latte until the sunsets. I watch families share a meal, couples talk by the shore, and kids play. There are laughs, smiles, and claps everywhere.

The October sky is adorned with many colorful kites. I smile whenever I see a kite waltz with the wind.

For The Arcade Society’s Halloween party, I dress up as a black book, made of cardboard, titled – A Black Book. The inspiration behind my costume is to induce boredom, a natural repellent for the zombies, corpses, mummies, clowns, and vampires. I’m a creative person, but the Halloween party isn’t the crowd I want to dazzle.

The roof-top at The Arcade has a breath-taking view of the Manama skyline. It is a moonless night. And, the blanket of glimmering stars above leaves me awestruck. But the blaring music is distracting.

While the creepy creatures, in awfully realistic make-up, dance to Michael Jackson’s Thriller, a corpse-bride breaks away from the crowded dance floor. And, sits next to me, in the invisible corner, behind the table of snacks.

The corpse-bride awkwardly smiles at me. Her face was painted white. Her honey-colored eyes, covered in black eye-shadow, and her lips, pale blue. She lifts her lacy wedding dress, dirty and torn in different places, and removes her silver stilettoes with heels as pointy as a spearhead.

Without her make-up, I can’t pick her out of a line-up of skinny petite women.

“That guy you see there,” she points at a tall lanky corpse-groom dancing with a latex barbie, “I broke up with him this morning.”

I wonder if asking why is too personal. Instead, I ask, “Are you sad?”

“No. I’m relieved,” she says in a soothing voice. I understand that sentiment.

I’ve known people whose departure from my life was a blessing. I learned to curate my social circle in such a way that if my life was a museum, every piece of art would enhance the place. I learned to carefully choose my people.

“The only outfit I like at this party is yours,” she compliments me.

I’m taken by surprise. So, I ask, “Why?”

“Because it shows, you don’t care. I didn’t want to be here, but here I am. It took me three hours to get ready and an hour to ruin a perfectly new wedding dress,” she sighs.

She’s right. I’ve attended the Halloween party at The Arcade every year for the last five years. And, I’ve always been, A Black Book.

People look like ants on the distant beach. They are scattered everywhere on the patch of green land and the sandy shore. The kites are soaring. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt the wind tug a thread between my fingers. I rise and the corpse-bride asks, “You are leaving?”

“I am going to fly a kite at the beach.”

She asks if she can join me.

I say nothing.

She intuitively replies to questions I haven’t asked, “I’m Eman. I’m a first-year surgical resident at John Hopkins. I’m here on a two-week vacation to visit my parents.”

She is the same age as many of my MBA students. I introduce myself with a sense of pride, but she isn’t impressed by my profession. My bias that “Doctors are arrogant” is further reinforced.

The beach is pleasantly windy. I teach the Doctor to fly her kite. And, as our kites are airborne, she says, “October sky is beautiful.”

I nod in agreement.

I say with a smile, “October is my favorite month for reasons besides Halloween. It’s breast cancer awareness month. I recently had a scare, but a good doctor did a mammogram and the report was good. The days are reasonably short and the nights are enjoyably long, unlike the dead of winter when the Sun, like an unmotivated employee, shows up late to work and leaves early.”

Eman adds, “I love the bed of dried leaves that, in the shades of the warm autumn colors, pave the sidewalks. What else is good? Yes, Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks!”

I smile back.

Her eyes follow the kite. She looks at the sky, pauses, and says, “And, the October sky is different; it is different in ways love is different from affection.

“October is like the last few pages of a book, before it ends,” I say.

A bridge of trust begins to build across our generational age gap. The girl and I become friends across the identity lines; connected by a shared, yet amazingly diverse experience of being human.